by Alexey Pehov
The light of my mushroom lamp picked a rather interesting picture out of the darkness of the immense hall. Something that not even a madman from the Hospital of the Ten Martyrs could have drawn—he could never even have imagined that such a thing could exist.
I admit quite honestly that cold shivers ran down my spine, my throat went dry, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. It’s not every day I have the “good luck” to see a scene from the play that the priests used to frighten us so often (I mean the story of the arrival of the darkness in Siala and similar fairy tales). Anyway, right there in front of me was a wall nine yards high. Nothing so very special about that, except that in this case, instead of bricks, the builders had used human skulls.
Thousands of thousands of them staring out at me with the dark holes of their eye sockets, thousands of thousands of them grinning at me sardonically with their bare teeth, thousands of thousands of them gleaming blinding white.
Thousands of thousands? More than that! How many skulls had it taken to make a wall like this? It was an appalling and yet fascinating scene. A scene of unreal and macabre beauty. Who had created this and how? What for? And where had they got such a massive number of human skulls? And was my own head likely to end up as one more brick in this terrible wall?
The wall completely blocked off my path. I walked along it, but ran up against the wall of the hall. I set off in the opposite direction and discovered a way through in the form of an archway with its vault made of ribs. I slipped through the archway and …
Yes indeed, and … Now I was certain that the Palaces of Bone had got their name thanks to this place. There before me lay a depository, a collection, a veritable treasurehouse of bones and remains that had once been people.
Nobody could ever have dreamed this, even in their most terrible nightmare. The walls of the hall were faced with skulls, the ceiling was covered with crossed ribs and shoulder blades, the huge chandeliers were made of yards and yards of spinal columns, rib cages, and skulls with magical lamps burning inside them and lighting up the Halls of Bone.
As I walked past these remains, I glanced at the bones and shuddered. It wasn’t very pleasant walking through a gigantic open warehouse of human death. The breath of dread and horror was palpable. It was as if the souls of everyone who had not been properly buried in all the centuries gone by were staring out at me through those dark eye sockets.
In these vast deposits of bones there wasn’t a single complete skeleton. Whoever put together this huge, macabre museum had taken the time to pull the skeletons apart and sort out the bones. There were heaps of different kinds of bones clustering, crowding, towering up along the wall. The vertebrae were in one place, the ribs in another, there were pelvises, lower jaws, large and small shinbones, upper arm bones, ulnas and radiuses, finger bones and toe bones, there were even piles of teeth.
Winding through the hills of bones (some of them were over six yards high) was a perfectly decent path. I walked along, trying to keep my wits about me and especially not to look at the skulls. The stares of thousands of thousands of eye sockets drilled straight through me. I felt a childish terror seething inside me. Walking through mountains of human remains silently contemplating eternity and all living things—this is truly cosmic horror.
And then the pyramids started. As was only to be expected, the skulls of the unfortunate dead had been used in their construction, too. Every one of these structures rose up to a height of more than ten yards. The skulls were laid with geometrical precision and fitted perfectly against each other. I think several thousand dead men’s heads must have been used in each pyramid. And in every pyramid there was a dark triangular opening or niche. I didn’t know why in the name of darkness they were put there, but I certainly was never going to climb into them.
I heard the ringing sounds in the distance soon after I passed the eighth pyramid.
Clink, clink. Clink, clink.
The sound was coming closer, and I started looking for a place to hide. I ought to have known—you should never say never. Sagot had obviously heard me and decided to have a joke, because the only place where I could hide now was in a niche in a pyramid. There was no time to think about it, the unknown Chimer would be with me any moment now, and then darkness only knew what might happen. I only had a knife—and not too much confidence in my ability to fight whatever it might be.
The niche proved to be quite roomy, and I fitted into it without any difficulty. I had to put the mushroom away in my bag, or the light would have given me away. The world around me was plunged into darkness.
Clink, clink—the steps were getting closer. Suddenly the walls of the pyramid directly opposite me emerged from the darkness. The unknown Chimer was carrying a torch. And then I saw the lad himself. Every step it took produced a ringing sound. The Chimer turned out to be a member of the numerous tribe of the restless dead. At least, its face was mummified, as dry and wrinkled as a raisin, it had no nose at all, its cheeks were ripped open, and the teeth were visible through the holes. The eyes were as black as agate and dead. Like Bass’s eyes.
The creature was wearing a court jester’s cap, with little miniature skulls on it instead of bells. In its left hand the creature was holding a torch, and in its right—a stick with an iron ball on a chain. The Chimer’s appearance was terrifying and impossibly absurd at the same time.
I sat in my refuge, as quiet as a mouse. The Chimer walked through the territory entrusted to its care and disappeared into the darkness. I waited until its steps faded away and climbed out of the pyramid. I had to get through the Halls of Bone as quickly as possible, or I could be in for trouble. A knife isn’t the most effective weapon against a ball and chain.
When I heard the ringing sound again, I dived into the next pyramid without thinking twice, and once again the dead man didn’t notice me. I had to hide another four times from the creatures patrolling the Halls of Bones.
The bones piled up in heaps along the walls somehow didn’t bother or frighten me anymore. Right then, Shadow Harold had only one thing on his mind—making sure he didn’t run into any Chimers.
The pyramids of bone parted and I found myself in … Well, probably you could call it a square. An entirely open space without a trace of bones. The mushroom lamp wasn’t giving much light, so I just had to walk forward, hoping there was no one anywhere nearby. Standing right in the center of the square was a statue.
I beheld the figure of Death. She seemed to be carved out of a single piece of bone with a texture and blinding pearly whiteness that were reminiscent of a mammoth’s tusk.
Death was sitting on a massive throne built of human bones with her bare feet resting on a huge skull that was an integral part of this monumental sculpture.
Death was wearing a plain sleeveless dress, more appropriate for a simple peasant woman on her way to the local harvest fair than the Queen of Lives and Fates. She was wearing a skull half-mask, so all that could be seen of her face were the plump lips (pressed tightly together) and her perfectly formed chin. Her luxuriant white hair tumbled down onto her naked shoulders.
The sculptor’s skill was beyond all doubt. The hair seemed real, the figure was almost alive. In the shrines, Sagra’s servant Death is always shown with a weapon (a scythe, or a sickle on a long staff), but there was nothing like that here. The woman had a bouquet in her hands. Her long elegant fingers held the flowers carefully—white narcissi, the symbol of death and oblivion. But what struck me most of all were her eyes, or rather, the lack of them (everyone knows that Death is blind, but she never errs in her choice).
The two dark gaps in the skull-mask seemed to be fixed on me, as if they were telling me that the time was not far off when my sorted bones would also be lying in the halls of the eighth level. I can’t say that I really felt afraid. Death never frightens those she comes for. Why would she? Ultimately we will all be her prize, in any case. No matter how long we live, the end is the same for all of us—she comes. With narcissi or a scythe—t
hat’s not so very important. Even the immortals, even the gods, will be hers in the end, it’s only a matter of time, and Death knows how to wait.
Oh, those eye sockets! I didn’t know who had dared to create this statue, who had managed to make her look so alive, but it must have been one of the very greatest Masters of Siala. The black gaps in the skull really were all-seeing. Whichever way I moved, I could feel them watching me. Not in menace, but with a certain restrained curiosity.
I heard the ringing footsteps approaching again and, with a farewell glance at Death, I dashed away, hoping very much that my path and the path of the Mistress of Lives would not cross soon, that we would meet at the final crossroads.
The Mistress of Lives? The final crossroads? Where did I know those phrases from? Was this Valder’s memory playing tricks, or was it the knowledge of a Dancer in the Shadows?
I plodded on until I came to a wall of skulls, found an archway, ducked through it, and I was back in the usual underground burial halls.
* * *
The dream is flooded as full of nightmares as an Isilian loaf is stuffed with raisins. I am dreaming. In the dream Death stands over me, with the wind of Chaos fluttering her white hair and her linen dress, as if it wants to tear it off. In the dream she leans down, preparing to lay a bouquet of pale narcissi at my feet, as if to say that I belong only to her. In the dream a blizzard wind—a fiery vortex of blazing crimson snowflakes—grabs the flowers out of the hands of Death and bears them away, then tears the skull half-mask off her face. But she covers her face with her hands and turns away before I can glimpse her face.
“It’s not time yet,” the wind of Chaos whispers, fluttering her incomparably beautiful flowing hair.
“It’s not time yet,” murmur the fiery snowflakes, swirling around Death in a sparkling dance.
“Go, our world needs him,” the scarlet flame that has appeared out of nowhere tells the intransigent Queen.
“Everything has its price. Do you agree?” Her voice is extraordinarily young and clear.
“He is ours,” the three shadows reply in chorus. “We will pay.”
She nods and steps aside to let the shadows pass, then disappears. Death is patient. She knows how to wait.
* * *
I woke up and stared into the darkness for a long time, looking toward my feet, afraid of seeing a bunch of pale narcissi flattened by a stormy wind. Afraid of hearing the roar of the crimson flame and the wind of the world of Chaos. Terrified of meeting the shadows.
A dream. It was only a dream, a sequence of meaningless nightmare images. But, by Sagot, how real it was! I got up, stuffing one of the fruits from the Cave of the Ants into my mouth. I took two steps and then froze, with icy shivers dancing a jolly jig up and down my spine.
Lying there on the floor, glittering forlornly in the light of the mushroom lamp, was a tiny little golden skull. A bell from a Chimer’s cap. While I was asleep, the creature had stood only two paces away from me, but he hadn’t killed me. Why would he have left this elegant little trinket on the floor? A hint? A warning that Death had not forgotten me? That the dream was not just a dream, and everything I had seen in my latest nightmare was nothing but the simple truth?
A h’san’kor only knows! I couldn’t even imagine why the skull had been left for me, but I certainly wasn’t going to pick it up. I skirted round the trinket lying on the floor and walked on into the tangled halls of the eighth level.
* * *
I traveled for three and a half hours, still following the Messenger’s advice and walking straight on along the central vestibule of the level, without turning left or right. Soon torches appeared in the halls again and there was no need for the mushroom lamp, so I put it away in my bag.
The architecture of the halls on the eighth level changed fundamentally once again. The crude, careless granite gave way to the amazing elegance and precision of silver and the gloomy tranquillity of black marble. Every hall was a treasure house, there was enough silver here to make five castles.
Beautiful silver inserts in the black marble of the columns, incredibly elegant brackets for the torches, balconies built from thin slabs of marble entwined with silver threads, doors from one hall to the next standing open, made of the finest timber in Siala—Zagraban oak and golden-leaf—with massive hinges of precious metal and elegant handles in the forms of animals that I didn’t recognize. Pictures in silver paint on every door, for the most part depicting trees and also—rather strangely for the culture of the orcs and the elves—the gods. But these gods looked very much like people and didn’t inspire the reverential awe that some philistines feel when they visit the shrines or the Cathedral in Avendoom.
The Silver Halls were probably every bit as beautiful as the scarlet-and-black Palaces of the fourth level.
The central vestibule took a right-angled turn to the left. That wasn’t really so very alarming, except that the Messenger had told me to keep going straight on without turning left or right.
Following simple logic, I ought to go on along the corridor and not get any other silly ideas into my head, but if I did as I had done so far, then … then I ought to go through that little silver door over there, hidden between those two projecting blocks of marble.
I couldn’t see any keyholes or other similar human nonsense. If the door had a secret lock and it had been made by elves and orcs, I’d be struggling with it for a long time—without much hope of ever actually opening it.
I examined it from a safe distance. Never fiddle with anything that makes you feel vaguely anxious—that’s one of the most important rules of a master thief. Study the situation thoroughly before you go jumping feet-first into the gnome’s fiery furnace.
I spotted a gap no thicker than a hair between the marble wall and the door. In short, I only had to push the door with my finger and it promptly opened.
Immediately behind it was a narrow corridor with a low ceiling. The flames in the small lamps standing in equally small niches in the wall fluttered like wounded moths. I had to walk along hunched over, with the ceiling just above my head. And I had the impression that this passage must have been made for short dwarves, gnomes, and goblins, not for men, orcs, and elves.
Fortunately for me, the corridor wasn’t too long, and after walking a few dozen paces I came to another silver door. This one wasn’t locked, either. I opened it, forgetting all about caution, walked through, and froze.
What was it the verse guide said?
In serried ranks, embracing the shadows,
The long-deceased knights stand in silence.
And only one man will not die ’neath their swords,
He who is the shadows’ own twin brother.
Well, those four lines were a pretty good description of what I saw in the hall. The orcs and elves stood facing each other in broken ranks, pressing back against the walls in the shadows cast by the square columns. But Kli-Kli claimed that the lines had been changed and in the famous Book of Prophecies, the Bruk-Gruk, they went like this:
Tormented by thirst and cursed by darkness,
The undead sinners bear their punishment
And only one will not die in their fangs,
He who dances with the shadows like a brother.
I didn’t know which of the gentlemen verse-mongers was right and whose verse was more accurate. In any case, the first and the second versions both warned quite openly that if you forgot to be cautious here, you could say good-bye to your ears.
The orcs and the elves stood along the walls and glared at each other. I ventured into the hall and started studying the figures from a safe distance. They turned out to be sculptures of warriors. Life-size figures, all in armor and all with weapons. I had the impression that any second now the statues would come to life and throw themselves at each other.
The columns running through the center of the hall gave out a silvery light, but there were thick shadows along the walls, and that gave most of the shadows an ominous look. Remembering t
hat in Hrad Spein things sometimes came to life when they really shouldn’t, I walked through the hall very cautiously indeed.
There were several thousand statues in the immense hall. Some overzealous individual had managed to put together an entire army. And do I even have to mention that the statues were not identical, in fact, they were all completely different?
Every elf had his own face and bearing, his own armor and weapon. At first I thought the sculptures were standing about at random, and it took me a while to realize that this was a formation. A complex and highly effective formation.
At the front were elves in heavy armor, with very broad s’kashes set on long poles; behind them came bowmen in light chain mail; and behind the bowmen were three rows of swordsmen, standing with spaces between them, so that the bowmen would be able to pull back.
The orcs were frozen facing the elves. Their spears were raised and they were protecting their bodies with long, heavy shields. They also had bowmen, swordsmen, and some lads with mighty two-handed axes. Like I said—an entire army.
I walked past the ranks of this stone army and into the next hall.… I stopped and caught my breath.
It looked as if the gods had clapped their hands and stopped time right in the middle of a furious battle. The jagged formation had fallen apart, and now the statues of the orcs and the elves were all jumbled together. There were Firstborn and Secondborn fighting all the way across the hall, and the sculptural composition was simply breathtaking.
Most of the elves and orcs were lying on the floor. Some with arrows stuck in the eye slots of their helmets or the joints of their armor. Some with their chain mail hacked apart, some with spears stuck into their stomachs, some were missing arms that had been chopped off, some had lost their heads.
Right in front of me an orc was frozen in the act of thrusting a spear into an elf who was trying to get up off the ground. A little farther on, the yataghans and s’kashes of dozens of irreconcilable enemies were locked in bloody combat. I walked past the frozen battle, looking at the warriors as I skirted round them.